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Karma gets Fisker hit with lemon law

Fisker has been dealt a further blow by having to buy a Karma sedan for not working, under a lemon law. Photo Credit: Dante Alighieri/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA

Fisker Automotive has been dealt yet another PR blow, as a wily attorney has used a lemon law suit to force the company to buy a Karma sedan back from a client. Lemon laws are among the many consumer protection laws, which compel automakers to buy a car back if they’ve made a dud.

When life hands Fisker lemon laws

When life hands one lemons, one is said to be supposed to make lemonade. Others say whiskey sours. If one mixes it with beer, they get a shandy.

However, regarding cars, a “lemon” means a car that doesn’t work, usually due to the manufacturer dropping the ball when they made the thing, selling a barely-functioning hunk of metal to someone. As it would happen, most states have what are called “lemon laws,” which compel automakers to buy a malfunctioning car back from the poor person they sold it to.

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Fisker Automotive, the beleaguered company behind the uber-stylish and likewise pricey Karma plug-in hybrid sedan, has just been hit with its first lemon law suit, according to AutoBlog, buying a perpetually broken Karma back from the owner.

Car was in the shop for four months

The nature of lemon laws, as they are known, vary by state, so anyone considering one would have to look up the appropriate legislation. Getting a car company to buy a car back under the laws, though, usually involves hiring a lawyer, who may or may not have to sue the car company to get them to comply.

In the case of the Fisker lemon law suit, a man in Wisconsin bought a Fisker Karma, which he purchased, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, in Appleton, Wisc., in late December. He had to take his car back to the dealership for service a total of seven times in seven months, for a total of 120 days in the shop, according to AutoBlog.

Wisconsin’s lemon law applies after a car has spent 30 total days in the first few months of ownership. It so happens that one of the most prominent lemon law attorneys in the nation, Vince Megna, is located in Wisconsin, who the man hired to negotiate a buy back. It seems only fair; plug in the amount of a loan for a Fisker Karma into any auto loan calculator, and one will see that it’s one very expensive car that doesn’t work.

Who would Bieliebe it

Fisker has complied, agreeing to purchase the car back for $103,550.

Megna also went to the dealership that sold the car and filmed a rather cheesy video, replete with a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber and asked sales personnel if the Karma was safe for celebrities to drive, given it’s habit of a slightly bursting into flames.

The Karma lemon law buy-back isn’t the only “green” dud making the news these days. According to KPHO Phoenix, a Phoenix, Ariz., CBS affiliate, Nissan has just agreed to buy two Nissan Leaf electric cars back from owners in the midst of reports of Leaf batteries giving out due to the intense desert heat.